First Minister (FM) Nicola Sturgeon has officially opened the new headquarters of oil and gas giant Statoil in Aberdeen.

As part of the company's plans to expand its North Sea operations, the new headquarters will employ up to 200 employees and 500 offshore workers by 2018.

Statoil's development in the Mariner heavy oil field will also support over a thousand jobs in the supply chain, with work expected to begin in summer 2017. In addition, the company is investing in offshore wind through the Hywind project, the word's first floating offshore wind development.

Ms Sturgeon said the companies investment and expansion in the North Sea oil and gas industry is a "vote of confidence" for the sectors future.

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Ahead of a meeting with Oil & Gas UK, the First Minister also confirmed that the first 600 people have had applications approved for the three-year Transition Training Fund, launched in February to help Scotland retain the skills developed through the oil and gas industry.

Ms Sturgeon also revealed around 70 innovation projects totalling approximately £16 million have benefited from £7 million of Scottish Government support to help firms reduce the risks associated with research and development. A further £1.1m fund has been invested to support business resilience in the oil and gas industry.

The First Minister said while recent statistics show the industry is adapting to the current period of low prices, it "must be ready" to capitalise once the sector starts seeing growth.

"Last week's Oil and Gas Production statistics demonstrate that the industry is adapting to the current period of low prices, but what the industry must be ready to do is to capitalise when the upturn comes," she said.

"In conjunction with the efforts of the Energy Jobs Taskforce, our Enterprise Agencies have now engaged with more than 700 companies in the oil and gas sector, and will continue to identify where help is most needed and lay foundations for the future of our energy sector."

(LM/MH)